[lbo-talk] Save the Doodle!

Joseph Catron jncatron at gmail.com
Mon Feb 4 18:38:39 PST 2008


A neighborhood anti-displacement task force meeting I attended tonight has forced me to refine my position in this debate. East Harlem is in an uproar over - get this - rising rents pushing out Associated and Pioneer supermarkets. Which is to say, the big, affordable, unionized, well-stocked chains I love so dearly.

In the best of all capitalist worlds, perhaps we could fuse commercial rent controls with community benefits agreements, offering regulated rent increases and guaranteed lease renewals to any company that fills an indisputable social need and hire community residents into living-wage jobs with full benefits?

But I'm certainly not in favor of handing out a rent-controlled commercial lease to every yahoo who wants one. Business models that are incapable of adequately compensating workers, or business owners who are unwilling to do so, are not aspects of existing communities that I have any interest in preserving.



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